It has been a couple of weeks since I have returned from vacation only to find our family business in a serious crisis. Since then, I stopped all sales of scripts from this site as I could not spend any time in development and support.

Things are not looking much better time wise for me. Meanwhile I am overly conscious about my customers inability to gain the recognised support and assistance from this site that I am known for. This has been a real challenge for me as I am very proud of what has been accomplished on this site, yet my family (and this crisis) must take priority.

A couple of weeks ago, I put some 'feelers' out to try and find help in support and development, however they haven't yielded any real viable results. At this stage I am forced to find some sort of solution that is better than permanently killing off my scripts.

The only solution I can see at this stage is to submit the latest builds to .org in hopes that the community will be able to pick up development and support of the projects. This of course brings up the dilemma of making all of my previously paid scripts free. While this is not very fair for those that may have paid for them, I believe that it is more fair then completely killing them off. At least .org may provide the needed support and growth that I can not currently provide.
I have emptied out my paypal account to issue refunds for everyone as far back as I can afford to (about the last month of purchases). I would go back further than that, however I think that a month is fair and the reality is that I now have only about 24 cents in my account!

Thank you all for your support. I have loved working on these scripts and I have loved the long term friendship that has evolved with so many of you. If I could have it any other way - I would... but my family must take priority just as your family must take priority for you.

Not the best solution - which of course would have been for you to be able to continue your own scripts but it is a remarkably sensible solution.

I've (on behalf the Forum I help run) have paid for several of your products over the years and the fact that they will now be free does not alter the reason we paid for them in the first place i.e. they provided features we wanted to offer on our Forum.

All the best for the future and I hope you and your family resolve the crisis as quickly and with as little pain as possible.

You were one of my fav coders all around the vb community. I am sad because you will be away from the community but i understand you have your family and you need to focus on them. I hope everything will turn out t be good for you and your family in future.

The ones that you will be providing at Vb.org will they be licensed free? or are they going to have the Created by... Because it would be a great idea to keep the Licensed to be buyable from this site.

You were definitely one of my favourite coders, and I stood your corner on more than one occasion in other places. I am a grumpy miserable old fart, with little patience for anyone or anything, but I am still able to display respect where it is deserved, and you most definitely deserve it.
Many thanks for all your effort, and I pray for a happy solution for you and yours.

Really hoping that we'll see you again
Tony - (a.k.a Gothic. the dinosaur/ancient structure)

I was shocked to find my account credited from you sam. That is pretty much unheard of and show's how noble and trusting you are. I feel like I should turn around and send it back to you because you earned it.

I've been around managing communities for 5 years now. No coder I have came across could even come close to the quality of products and support you offered.

I really feel this is a dark day in the vbulletin community. While I've never talked to you I've always looked up to you because of knowledge of php.

Im afraid that .org will not be able to support and develop the scripts, we are talking about some of the largest and most advanced add-ons to vbulletin.
(development in lot of popular scripts on .org as suddenly stopped).
It might be the end to the scripts, in any case probably with the next major vbulletin upgrade.

Sam, are you sure the crisis could not be dealt with in fx 3-4 months, and then return? Of course, that would be a long time without support and development, but I have a feeling it might be the best to your customers and the amazing scripts if it by a small change could be possible. If you release the scripts on .org, it will in any case take quite some time before others will be able to deliver real development and support.

About the scripts, I would also suggest not to release your scripts so early may be you can hold them on with you for couple of months and then see if you can return back to scripts if not then you can release them.

I'm so so sorry to hear this Sam. Truthfully, I fear that your scripts will die at .org, as I can't think of anyone who could support your scripts accurately, as they are so much more advanced than what is released there.

Have you given any thought to approaching the developers at .com and possibly selling to them?? I'm very serious, really. Please think about it.